


eat your words

by grandmas_ghost (nap_princess)



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst?, F/M, Happy Ending?, I suck at writing romance, I wrote this fic for me but y'all can read it if you want, Lisanna my Queen, Modern AU, Smoking, strawberries and cigarettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 20:19:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14922176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nap_princess/pseuds/grandmas_ghost
Summary: Blue eyes, black jeans, lighters and candy, I've been a fool but strawberries and cigarettes always taste like you / He's setting the sun on fire (it's a lost cause)– Nali, modern AU





	eat your words

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Strawberries & Cigarettes](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/388973) by Troye Sivan. 



** eat your words **

* * *

 I've been a fool but strawberries and cigarettes always taste like you

– **Troye Sivan** , _Strawberries & Cigarettes_

* * *

 

 

 Love is a game (and they don’t know how to play)

 

* * *

She thinks, people were staring at her as she minded her business and read _Simon vs the Homosapiens Agenda_ at the public park. Lisanna ignores all the eyes on her and instead concentrates on the words of her book.

Lisanna wishes she had her siblings with her or at least her friends, but it’s Summer and everyone’s done with high school so, of course, that called for her siblings to go on spontaneous road trips or her friends’ time being spent with family at a Summer cabin. So that left Lisanna alone with herself and her books.

“Can you move?” A stranger asks, towering over her, blowing smoke in her face.

Lisanna looks up and stops swinging on the swing-set. She brushes her hair away from her eyes and asks, “Excuse me?”

“My kids want to play on the swing set.” The strangers says, and now Lisanna notices it’s a middle-aged mother who has two kids trailing behind her.

“It’s occupied.” Lisanna answers. The park is wide and there are other things the kids can play on, there are four swing sets for goodness sake, Lisanna doesn’t understand why _she_ has to move.

The woman prods, “Can’t you read somewhere else?”

Lisanna pulls a face, big blue eyes filling with slight irritation. She snaps her book shut and sighs, “Fine.” She doesn’t even get a ‘thank you’ and she’s practically shoved aside when the kids try to scamper to her seat. What kind of generation will this woman raise?

.

.

.

Lisanna's heard people telling her how one should yell "Fire!" instead of "Help!" when in trouble because, according to them, the world is mean and cruel and oh-so rude to everyone around them.

But Lisanna believes the world can't possibly be that way. Her proofs are her siblings and her friends, but without them, it’s hard for the words not to get to her.

…

Her big sister, Mirajane has decided to travel around Europe with her best friend, Erza Scarlet, and the Thunder Tribe. Meanwhile, Elfman has decided on a solo trip to the woods, camping to be one with nature or be a man or something along those lines. Lisanna, on the other hand, though she enjoys the outdoors, isn't a big fan of traveling. Not after that one incident involving her almost being crushed and having broken bones and stitches. So Magnolia is her safe haven.

But it seems like everyone is itching to leave so Lisanna guesses she either needs help with her problem or she needs to learn to make a living here and have everything within walking distance.

* * *

The last memory Lisanna Strauss had of Natsu Dragneel was them being thirteen and him being a little shit, riding off on his cousin's pink scooter. Wendy Marvell was a seven year old kid and Natsu was a teenager trying to fit into said kid's tiny scooter, laughing maniacally as he furiously peddled away.

Now, they're eighteen and Lisanna _still_ can't imagine Natsu as anything but the same little shit he was. Especially now that he’s taken up that nasty habit of smoking. Lisanna’s seen Natsu around the public park and it’s not like she’d stop going there just because of him or the rude people.

Despite the earlier rude incident. Lisanna likes hanging out at the park. At least out here, it's open and the air is fresh and the grass is green. Plus, after eight PM, the adults take away their little ones for dinner and bedtime. So Lisanna doesn’t feel like the odd one out, she's small enough to climb on things like the jungle gym and play like no one's watching.

The only problem is, somebody _is_ watching and Lisanna thinks Natsu Dragneel is one of the few who would want to watch the world burn. To her, Natsu smoking is like him setting the sun on fire, it's a lost cause.

"Want one, Lis?" He asks her a question as he refers to the cigarette that she's been absentmindedly staring at. It’s the first thing he’s said to her since middle school, after almost five years of radio silence. Smoke is coming out of his mouth and for a moment,  _just a moment_ , he looks like a dragon.

Lisanna makes a face, knitted eyebrows and pulled back lips. She was just spacing out when she stared at him. She'd  **never**  smoke. With a wrinkled nose, she grips onto the chain of the swing she’s seated on and says politely, "No, thanks."

A smile stretches on his face, wide and playful.

"You shouldn't smoke." She tells him.

He puffs some more, he lets his breath get taken and his life shortened. Natsu replies, "I've heard it all."

"Then why do you keep doing it?"

He blows a smoke ring and doesn't answer her question. Instead, he asks his own, “Wanna hang out?”

Her pale eyebrows arches and she looks around to double check if he’s talking to her. Lisanna points to herself and asks, “Me?”

“Yeah, who else?” He asks back.

She doesn’t reply.

Natsu says, “You’re always alone anyway, why not chill with me instead?”

She remains quiet and stares at him to try to understand his angle.

“I don’t bite.” He tells her then finally says, “I have coupons for _McDonalds_ if you want to make things more casual.”

Lisanna lets out a laugh at this. “Ah, yes, burgers and greasy fries, you really know how to make a girl swoon and her heart flutter.”

“Sorry your stomach isn’t a way through your heart.” He jokes back and soon they’re both laughing.

.

.

.

People like watching the world burn as much as Natsu likes lighting his cigarette (along with his lungs) on fire.

* * *

Lisanna's blue eyes immediately snap away, a bad feeling sinking in her stomach, as she walks beside Natsu in the crowded city centre. The thought of the world wanting to burn to the ground seems oh-so true right now.

"What's wrong?" Natsu asks and she swears he has sixth sense or something. It's definitely the something, you know, fully functional eyes to see her distress.

"Those kids were throwing their trash at that hobo." Lisanna replies. Well, they weren't exactly kids per se. More like thirteen year olds being little shits.

"What? I'll –”

"Don't." She says and grasps his elbow gently, guiding his burning gaze towards her and not the preteens she had pointed out. "Don’t get involved with them. Those kids are on a school trip. They're not from here, you don't know what kind of trouble you could get into."

"So you expect me to just –” He doesn’t finish his words. He just shakes his head and pulls his arm from her grip.

“Natsu!”

He walks away from her, fuming and taking big strides.

* * *

The smell of menthol is on her clothes the next day when she goes looking for him. A part of her is paranoid because the last time they talked, he was mad at her. And he’s _never_ been mad at her before.

"Why didn't you text me back?" She asks as she sucks in a tired breath before looking at him with her big blue eyes and rubbing her sweaty palms on her black jeans.

There's that familiar cigarette lit between his teeth as he turns his green eyes towards her.

"Hi." Natsu greets her like they planned to meet up. Then he adverts his gaze back towards the lake and the ducks he's feeding. He looks like he’s widowed and heartbroken but not old enough to sit in a park and feed pigeons (so he opted for the lake and ducks instead).

For a moment, Lisanna feels like he’s ignoring her. “Are you still mad at me?”

Natsu shakes his head before he throws in a relaxed laugh and explains himself, "Sorry about that. I threw my phone into the lake by accident instead of the piece of bread I had in my hand when I was here yesterday."

She collapses into the seat beside him on the bench and tears a piece of bread for the ducks. She tells him after a moment, "You're an idiot."

"Yours truly." Natsu answers.

Lisanna only scowls then karate chops his cigarette out of his mouth. He lets her do it, he lets her win just this one time.

* * *

 { You always leave me wanting more, I can't shake my hunger for … }

* * *

They walk everywhere together. And she means  **everywhere** ; to the crowded mall and stuffy movies and green park.

“You’re an idiot.” Natsu repeats her words from the other day as Lisanna tries to steady her balance on the seesaw they were standing on.

“Yours truly.” She says parrots and almost falls.

The wind picks up and they both shiver.

* * *

 { Blue eyes, black jeans, lighters and candy, I've been a fool }

* * *

They sit at the back of his beat-up truck; keys still in his pocket, engine dead and the vehicle along with them heading no where. They sit with their shoulders touching and shivering from the lack of warmth. They’re cold and, the moment is like sugar and smoke dreams.

Despite wearing a jacket, Natsu feels cold, the flimsy thing is practically nothing. The jacket is thin and chic, not really for warmth but more for style. Not only does he look cool but he also feels cool, in the worse possible way. Like girls in heels, feeling elegant but bearing the weight of hell at the balls of their feet 

But it’s not really about him. It’s about her; about Lisanna being cold. He wanted to make her stop shivering. He wanted to drape his jacket over her shoulders, he wants to warm her up. But he thinks he’s pretty useless at that.

"Why don't you drive or ride the bus or something?" Lisanna asks, lamenting on their aching feet and sore legs from all the walking.

"Hmm," Natsu hums and chews some sweets from his bag of candy, it tastes too strongly of artificial strawberry flavouring. Earlier at the convenient store, he had put the damn thing so casually into her basket that it might have seemed like they didn't just become friends a month ago.

He's comfortable with her and she guesses she is with him too.

Natsu replies breezily, "Oh, I have a phobia for transportation. Also motion sickness. But mostly the phobia part."

She steals a piece of candy just to give herself a busy mouth and to encourage him to talk more.

“What about you?” He says, fingers now playing with his lighter, capping and uncapping the cool thing. He looks like he wants to light a cigarette or maybe burn something.

“I had an accident when I was little. I almost died.”

“Ah,” He smiles, though it doesn’t look happy. "So I guess our fear for cars came from the same place.”

“Really?”

He nods. “Yeah. But unlike you, someone I knew did die."

“Oh … I’m … I’m sorry.” Lisanna means it with sincerity.

“It’s okay.” He waves it away like it was nothing (but was it?)

Lisanna turns her gaze to the bright, bright moon to pretends they aren’t alone – just a boy and a girl, the two of them. She feels … awkward. God, _so awkward_. Why is she like this?

Then she feels his gaze on her, a certain type of hunger. So she looks back and realizes he's staring at her lips. 

"What?" She asks, burning red like fire just so he'd quit it.

"Nothing." He chuckles and plays with his lighter again.

She swears she could almost feel his kiss –

.

.

.

(She bets he tastes like strawberries and cigarettes)

* * *

"Come on, we should head out, it's almost nine PM and we don’t want to get locked in the park." Lisanna says and almost kicks herself off the swings.

Natsu doesn't move though. And this forces her to look back at the pink haired boy. She doesn't exactly know what they are.

"Come on," She repeats, wanting to walk away so that she can toss away the bag of strawberry candy into the trash.

"I still want to chill." He answers and she frowns in response. His fingers walked to her hand and she doesn’t pull away so he asks her, “Why don't we sneak back in later?"

"What are we? Ninjas?"

“Well, you did karate chop my cigarette the other day.”

She doesn’t budge.

“So I take that as a ‘no’?” He replies so innocently that she thinks he can’t possibly want the world to burn like she always thought he did.

* * *

“Help me!” She calls out the same day, drowning in the lake. She gasps and panics and yowls like a frighten cat forced into a bath.

She can't swim.

She can't _fucking_ swim and it's midnight, she's probably done for it and sealed her fate because technically she's trespassed into the park after it's closed so who on earth is going to save her now?

"Help!" She sputters as water gets into her mouth and stings her nose. "HELP!"

One second of waiting feels like a decade. She screams four more times while struggling and trying to keep herself afloat. Five seconds pass, it feels like a century. So who knows how long another three seconds will feel like if she tries to yell again? Probably an eternity?

At last, she screams "Fire! FIRE!" because maybe they were right. _Maybe_ everyone does want to watch the world burn.

.

.

.

He kicks off his shoes and shrugs off his jacket then dives in.

He gives her CPR because this is  **not**  a  _Disney_  movie where there's just tears and a dramatic death. He  _will_  make her breathe and he _will_ make her heart beat again if it's the last thing he does. For once after a _long time_ , he decides to give his breath away instead of letting it be taken.

He's not going to lose.  _Not again_ ,  **not anymore**. He's not going to lose anyone, no longer will he let people slip out of his finger like his cigarette's smoke. 

.

.

.

"I heard you scream for help," He tells her after he pulls her out of the lake, soaking wet, drenched to the bone. He tries to sooth her coughing with a warm hand of her back and the only dry article of clothing he has, his thin jacket draped on her trembling form.

"F – For 'help'?" She echoes as she coughs, tasting dirty lake away and strawberries and cigarettes. "Not 'fire?"

"No," He blinks confused. "Was there a fire?"

"No." She answers back with tears in her eyes. She knew the world wasn't as bad as people said it was.

.

.

.

She's never been pretty like her sister but damn is she beautiful when she cries. And isn’t that just a tragedy?

* * *

 { Give my heart a holiday }

* * *

  **end**

**Author's Note:**

> When the fuck will I stop making fun of Lisanna dying? The answer is never.
> 
> – 13 June 20GAYteen


End file.
